Click

Click
One Novel Ten Authors
YA fiction. 209 pp.
Levine. 2007.

from the flap copy:

A camera.
Some photographs.
A box with seven shells.
And many mysteries.

Those are the things that Maggie and Jason inherited from their grandfather, the famed photojournalist George "Gee" Keane. Gee traveled from Ireland to Russia, Japan to Australia, taking pictures of people at work, at war, in sports, and at play. Now Jason receives Gee's photographs and camera—though he has no idea what to do with them. And Gee leaves Maggie with the puzzle of seven shells—one that might take her whole life to solve. As Maggie and Jason use these gifts, they will discover all the people their grandfather was . . . and all the people they might yet become.

Ten bestselling, award-winning authors unite for a novel of brilliant writing, global adventure, and constant surprise. Your purchase of this book will benefit Amnesty International, but the pleasure will be entirely your own.

I picked this book up because I thought it was an intriguing idea and I like some of the authors. I like that the narrative is employing a variety of short stories by different authors. I just don't think it worked. Sure, some of the stories are quite good, especially toward the beginning of the collection, as they confirm why we should like authors such as Linda Sue Park, Eoin Colfer, Gregory Maguire, and Nick Hornby. But the ones toward the end, where it starts getting all Sci-Fi futuristic, are rather blasé.

I guess, in the end, we just need to accept that some short story collections work and some don't.